


The Mad Tea Party

by AmeliaAsherWrites



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Madness, Non-Consensual Violence, Tea Parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-15 01:11:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9212792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmeliaAsherWrites/pseuds/AmeliaAsherWrites
Summary: This is a canon compliant one shot explaining Out of the Past, the graphic novel involving Jefferson and Priscilla, the March Hare, and how it all changed Jefferson's life.





	

Jefferson sits at his small table facing his lovely wife. He watches her expressions as she reaches out to grip his hand on the table. She is adamant that he should not leave to pursue the March Hare’s Clock of Evermore, but he shakes his head as he squeezes her fingers. “I have to go. We’re going to lose this hut just like we lost our house. I can’t find a job and you and Grace deserve better than this.”

Priscilla purses her lips as she regards him. “I support you, darling, but please don’t go.”

His eyes drop as he studies their linked hands. Finally, he nods. “Okay.” In attempt at hiding the anxiety that eats at his heart, he averts his eyes and lifts her hand to his lips. “Let’s go to bed.”

They check on their sleeping baby to make sure she is well, then climb into their simple bed. Jefferson cannot sleep as his wife’s head rests on his shoulder. He stares at the dark ceiling feeling as it is his duty to his family to provide for them, he must do anything in his ability for them. 

At Priscilla’s request, he had retired his hat at Grace’s birth. Their funds had dwindled to the point where they could no longer afford to live in the quaint yellow home they had purchased together. Yet, it was a safer life to provide for his family. While he knew it was a difficult decision for Priscilla as well, she being a thief by trade like himself, but their family was more important. Grace deserved to be raised the right and honest way. 

With the rising reign of Regina and her oppression over the village, Jefferson could find no employment. Money continued to slip through their fingers and the future looked bleak.

After some time when he is sure Priscilla is asleep, he carefully slips from beneath her and settles her on the pillow so that he can get up. He shuts their bedroom door quietly and retrieves the oddly shaped box from the trunk near the front door. His fingers twitch in restrained excitement. The hat had been stored for over a year now, and he hated to admit to himself in a guilty pleasure in using it again.

He tilts his head as his fingers slip beneath the brim to lift the hat in awe from the box. A flip of his fingers, has the hat right side up. A slow grin spreads across his face. “I missed you,” he whispers.

The empty hat box is stored back in the trunk. Rotating his wrist, he swings the hat atop his head, dons his long coat, and slips out the front door of the hut leaving his small child and sleeping wife behind. 

 

Once he is far enough into the woods away from home, Jefferson withdraws the slip of intel sent to him by his old business partner from his pocket that he had received the day before. ‘Dear Jefferson-- The March Hare has the Clock of Evermore in Wonderland. Retrieve it for our mutual client and never want for anything again. Signed, William.’

He crumples the parchment into a ball in his fist and tucks it away into a pocket as he removes the hat from his head to study it again. He nearly looks through it as his vision unfocuses. If he does this, they will all be better off. Perhaps if he’s fast, he can be back before Priscilla even wakes. “Now or never,” he grumbles as the hat spins away from his outstretched fingers.

\---

It is also night in Wonderland when Jefferson steps through the door in his hat. He tucks the hat firmly upon his head as he begins to walk in a brisk pace towards the location he knows the March Hare to be living. While he had been to Wonderland a few times in the past and is familiar with the land, it also makes him nervous. Strange and deadly things lie around every corner, within every hedge, and the monarch, he has heard, is quite unforgiving. 

After what seems like an hour of avoiding certain well-lit places, he is walking along the edge of a wood. He could have been certain that the March Hare lived near there, but he feared he was lost. Growing frustrated in his stupidity, he kicks a rock which strikes a tree. 

A purring groan is emitted from said tree and Jefferson jumps back. “What. Arrrrrrrre you doing?” A deep sigh followed by a slinky shifting in shadows is enough to tell Jefferson that he had awakened some sort of talking beast. 

“Um. Nothing. Don’t mind me.” His eyes are wide in quiet horror as the sight of a row of shining teeth is the only thing he can make out in the shadows. Side stepping away from the treeline, Jefferson keeps his wary eyes on the teeth.

“Oh, please. Stop right there and speak to me. I don’t bite. Hard.” A vine or something equally as thick strikes the back of his calves sending him falling to his back, his hat rolling away from him. “What’s your nammmme?”

Jefferson gulps as a pair of feline eyes open above the wide maw. It settles a heavy paw into his shoulder as the pressure of a claw punctures his jacket and hits his shoulder. “It’s Jefferson. Would you kindly remove yourself from me? I have business to attend to and not a lot of time to do it.”

“Business with Time? How amusing. You have all the time in the world, dear Jefferson, if that is the company you seek.” A puff of hot air hits his face as he attempts to push the furry chest off of himself.

“I do NOT have time for riddles. I’m to meet--”

“The March Hare. That is who holds Time in his pocket. But you may not want to go there. It’s a mad, mad time.”

He is finally successful in wiggling out from under the beast and stands to brush the dirt off of himself. “Thanks for your confidence,” he says with a note of short temper and sarcasm, “but I really don’t care to discuss riddles with a half-invisible cat.”

The cat chuckles deeply. “Call me Cheshire. I believe we’ll meet again in Time.” The shadows shift and move indicating the cat is withdrawing into the forest again. “You’ll find your future in the tower at the edge of the wood. Mind the sharp edge of the feather.”

Pursing his lips, Jefferson shakes his head as he glares at the retreating shadow. “Now. Where are you, hat?” 

His only answer is the whistling sound of the wind traveling across a blunt object as it is swung at the back of his head.

\--

When he comes to, Jefferson finds himself staring at his vest. He has an awful crick in his neck from being hunched over in an odd position. It is daylight now. “Oh no,” he groans. How long had he been tied to the chair he sits in? One of his hands is still free, but his other hand is painfully strapped to the arm of the chair, his legs tied to the feet and planted in the grass.

“Oh, yes!” a delighted voice answers. “Care for tea? A biscuit maybe?”

Jefferson slowly raises his head, but the movement causes him to wince at the pain that blossoms across his head. “Ugh.” He sees the man sitting across the table from him. Aside from a maniacal grin covering the man’s face, he is wearing a very peculiar looking top hat with bloodied rabbit ears nailed around the circumference. Jefferson narrows his eyes in attempt to understand what his eyes are seeing. 

“Have some tea, my good sir.” The man’s eyes are particularly alarming. They represent what Jefferson can only describe as maniacally disturbed. They are bloodshot and too wide. To go along with the bloodied rabbit ears and the grin, he assumes he is in the clutches of madness. Is this the March Hare? He wonders.

Yet, Jefferson is no fool. With his free hand, he lifts the teacup but finds it empty. “I thank you for your hospitality. May I have a refill?” Meanwhile, he attempts to shift his feet to rid them of being bound to the chair, but he cannot budge at all. 

The man across from Jefferson stands and screams. “Of course! Doormouse! The tea! Blast you, fill the man’s cup this instant!” Sitting down again, the March Hare laughs as a rodent of unusual size jumps upon the table knocking over saucers, overfilled cups, and scatters tea biscuits upon the surface and onto the ground. The cup in Jefferson’s fingers wobbles in response. “Keep still, you imbecile! I won’t have you wasting my tea.”

“Apologies, sir.” If that rodent, the Doormouse bites, Jefferson feels he may lose a limb. It’s teeth are quite long.

“Or, if you spill, I can always use this, I suppose.” The man leans back confidently in his chair to dig through his waist coat pocket to remove a pocket watch. The hands on it are rather large for the small time piece, but the movement on the face is very specific. 

“What is that?” Jefferson asks without thinking. He gulps as the teacup in his fingers slip and fall to the ground.

“Why, the Clock of Evermore, of course.” With narrowed eyes, the March Hare spots the teacup falling, shrieks, and digs his fingers into the face of the clock, to shift the minute hand back ever so slightly.

Jefferson’s head is dizzy and clouded, his breath short. 

“Don’t you dare drop that teacup!” 

The teacup is in his hand again, the Doormouse is nowhere in sight. 

“Doormouse!” Jefferson squeezes his eyes shut as the rodent jumps upon the table again. “Get our guest some tea!”  
\--

Over and over for what seems like the maddest of tea parties, Jefferson finds himself exhausted. He can barely keep his head up. He hadn’t had a single drink yet, but with the rewinding of time, he is kept from perishing from dehydration and starvation. It doesn’t make the hunger pains disappear, or the knowledge that he had lost count of the number of times the clock had been rewound after 300 times. 

“Dearest Jefferson, you must stay awake. You are being an incredibly rude guest.” March Hare stands from his chair to Jefferson’s growing horror. The man hadn’t gotten up once until then. His free hand shakes as he strains to hold onto the teacup this time, but he doesn’t look up to the approaching maniac. “Do you like my hat? I know you have one as well. I could fix yours for you, you know. We can match one another.” 

Jefferson shakes his head as he tries to look away, but his chin is grabbed and is forced to look up at the March Hare. “I haven’t seen my hat in ages,” is all he can manage to say as his throat is too dry to speak much. 

“What ever do you mean? I found your hat just before I found you. It’s away in my tower for safekeeping until you can join me there. If only you would hold that teacup without dropping it, I would whisk you away from here into comfortable living. We’ll never grow old with this Clock in my hands.”

Jefferson’s eye twitches as he looks up at the maniac.

“Don’t you want to be comfortable again? I can give you anything your heart desires.” His hand traces Jefferson’s cheek in what feels too much like a caress.

In a show of defiance, Jefferson raises his lip in a sneer and opens his hand to drop the teacup. “I’d sooner die.”

With a shriek, the March Hare yanks his hand from Jefferson’s face and removes a bloodied knife from his belt. “I’ll make you appreciate my hospitality--”

The words stop abruptly at the sound of a melon cracking on a rock. Or so he imagines as the bloodshot eyes before his roll up and the maniac falls limply to the ground.

The most beautiful sight fills Jefferson’s vision then as the redheaded woman he hadn’t seen in ages grabs the side of his face. “My darling, what has he done to you!”

Jefferson’s body begins shaking as he laughs in delirium. Being prepared to die one minute met with freedom the next overwhelms him as the bindings on his arm and legs are cut free. Priscilla wraps her arm around his back and pulls his other arm across her shoulders so she can help lift him from the chair.

Though he is taller and much heavier than herself, she manages to get him to his feet as he continues with his nervous laughter. “Jefferson, come on. Pull yourself together. We have to hurry. The White Rabbit is waiting to take us back to the Enchanted Forest.”

Jefferson digs his feet in which stops Priscilla’s progress. He stares at her face looking as lost as he had ever been. “You saved me,” he mumbles. 

“Yes, darling, of course,” she placates. “But we have to go immediately!”

“But, my hat.”

“We don’t need it. The rabbit can get us home!” She pulls at his hand again, but he pulls her back to him so that she is flush against him, her forearms on his chest as he holds her body close to his.

“Priscilla, I love you so much. I regret leaving--”

She shuts him up by grabbing his face and pulling him into a kiss that brings him back immediately to focus, to sanity, to her. He trails his mouth along her cheek to her neck as he kisses her holding her tightly. “I won’t leave you again,” he whispers.

“I know,” she whispers back holding onto his face. It was times like these that reminded Jefferson on how he met Priscilla.

He had been in Camelot to steal a valuable artifact from a nobleman’s Ball, but had been thwarted by a red haired beauty in an elegant green dress. Her quick wit and fiery grin captured his attention immediately. Together, they had stolen the artifact and ran together. Jumping from realm to realm, they stole what they needed, got paid for it, and built up a comfortable life together. She was his partner in crime and his partner in life. Absolutely his perfect match. 

Priscilla tugs his arms so that he must drop them from how he holds her. “We have to run. The madman might wake soon,” she urges.

Reluctantly, Jefferson agrees. “We have to go to the tower at the end of the wood first. My hat is there.”

Seeing how important this is for her husband, Priscilla nods and away they run together, hand in hand.

\--

As soon as his hat is in hand again, a loud crash in the hall below catches the couple’s attention. “Hurry! He’s coming!” Jefferson grabs Priscilla’s hand and runs. A stairwell ahead looks promising enough, so they escape through an open door slamming it behind themselves. The cacophony behind indicates it is likely a band of villains chasing them. “We can go through my hat!” His breath puffs out in exertion as they climb the spiral staircase.

“No, we can’t! You came without me. I got here by the White Rabbit. We’ll have to split up.”

“One enters, one leaves. Damn it! I promised you I wouldn’t leave you. We’ll find the rabbit.”

She nods at him just as the door below is broken into wooden splinters at the sound of an ax cracking the beams open. “GET BACK HERE!” The March Hare’s voice shrieks with unrestrained madness. 

An arrow whizzes through the air sailing over Jefferson’s shoulder. Cheshire’s words echo in his mind then. The sharp bite of the feather. This is the moment he was warned about. Pushing thought aside, he pulls Priscilla to proceed him so he can protect her from the assault from behind as they climb the stairs, but before she gets there, she stumbles with a cry. An arrow has pierced her back staining her jacket. The air in Jefferson’s throat hitches into a startled yell. He grabs her legs and supports her back as he lifts her to run the remaining few steps up and kicks the door shut. 

As he lays her gently upon the stone floor, tears stream down his face. She wraps her arms around his neck as she says fervently, “You must go back to Grace now. Don’t let her grow up an orphan.”

He pulls back so he can see her face. “I can’t leave you. You’ll be okay. I’ll find a doctor.”

“There’s no time, Jefferson. You have to go now. They’re coming.” 

He knows she is right. The door just behind him is being struck and hacked and won’t hold much longer. Tears obscure his vision as he gently sets the love of his life against the wall so she can sit upright.  

“Go, my love. You have to hurry. Go back to Grace and keep her safe.” She chokes and blinks heavily. 

The door splinters as the face of the March Hare mashes through the crack to cackle at the sight before him. “You’re mine, Hatter!” 

Jefferson kisses his wife one last time before spinning his hat away from himself. He keeps his eyes on Priscilla as he jumps until Wonderland disappears from sight. Once in the hallway of doors within the hat, he sprawls on the stone floor, staring at the ceiling, barely breathing as the consequences of his actions replay over and over in his mind.


End file.
